In-game Support Site Access and Tools in 5.3

We’re adding a new feature to World of Warcraft that will replace the current in-game support system with a direct portal to the Battle.net Support site. Our aim is to give players easy access to the site’s robust knowledge base and support contact system.

We’ve gone to great lengths to improve our website support systems and we want to offer access to all of its robust features in-game. The new direct support site access will make it easier to find information to help you resolve issues you’re experiencing or contact our representatives if you need a little extra help.

We will test this new feature in the 5.3 public test realm (PTR), and we’d like your assistance. Adding a support site access in-game is a new venture for us, and we need you to test it by searching through the support knowledge base and pages to make sure that it holds up in various hardware and network situations. It’s important to note that while we will be testing the functionality of this feature within the PTR, we are unable to process support ticket submissions.

To help test and provide feedback, copy your character and download the PTR client.

We’d appreciate you keeping your feedback to this thread. We’ll be combing through it for your feedback and reports of any errors or issues you’re seeing.

I know your impulse is to not share any of this, but it's going to be figured out eventually. You may as well make it easy for the people who want to help to find issues before the people who want to exploit it find something to take advantage of.

We’re glad that there are so many who want to help test the functionality of this new system and appreciate the questions. You’re right that the development team is continuing to take player privacy and security very seriously. Here’s what we can answer for you:

I know this is a trade off between security and useful testing, but can/will you tell us anything about the browser tech you're using? Which rendering engine, etc?

We’re using the Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) for the browser functionality within the system.

Is it going to have access to any of the active game information (for example, will you need to log in to the Customer Service website while you're in the game, or will the game authentication somehow be passed through?

We plan to have a single sign on process, which will alleviate the need to re-authenticate. We plan to have this implemented in the near future.

Will the character currently logged in be automatically selected, game state information be captured for ticket data, or client logs be available to include (or automatically included) with ticket submission?

Tickets will capture some data relevant for Customer Service to be able to work effectively such as a player’s location for ‘stuck’ bugs (which allows a GM to teleport to the player location.) This is done on the backend.

Where will browser session information be stored on the local PC? Will any of it persist between game sessions?

We are minimizing the amount data stored on player’s machines and the data we persist between sessions. The browser will not be able to access ‘general purpose’ sites.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that this system is being devised not to remove GM assistance when it’s needed. It’s meant to make it easier for those that want to find “self-help” options without the need to contact Customer Support should they wish to.